Schedule This

Happy Opening Day to all..... Balls will be in the air this afternoon on Maui and I eagerly await the first update on current FedEx Cup standings....  It's been way too long, man.

However, there's a situation requiring my attention....  Almost three feet of snow has hit Park City in the last 72 hours, so there are trees that I need to go narrowly miss.  Let's discuss one significant issue and we'll catch up on the other stuff...excuse me, Udder Stuff, as time permits.

New Commish Jay Monahan has been making the rounds, and reinforced that major changes to the Tour schedule are under serious consideration, specifically the move of the PGA to May:

“That’s certainly something that we would like to see happen,” Monahan said. “Having big events every month, culminating in the FedEx Cup playoffs in August prior to the

NFL season, that would be a very powerful schedule.” 

Such a change would require the cooperation of the PGA of America, a separate organization that runs the PGA Championship but also has a seat on the policy board that oversees the PGA Tour. Monahan said it is unlikely to happen in 2018.

Here's Shack's initial take on it:

You will recall that PGA of America CEO Pete Bevacqua has dangled this idea as well, but as I laid out in this post, such a move will, at least agronomically, likely mean the end of visits to beloved PGA of America markets in Minneapolis, Rochester and Milwaukee/Sheboygan. The greater New York City area even becomes dicey in years that have rough Springs. 

While the concept is largely brilliant in concentrating golf to a tighter, more fan-friendly season, the central question remains: will the PGA of America take this risk that also could mean a smaller TV audience than they usually get in sports-light August, all so that the low-rated FedExCup playoffs can be finished prior to the NFL and college football seasons?

To put it another way, all of the risk taken here is taken on by the PGA of America to essentially save the FedExCup playoffs. What is their reward?

I'll take NYC in May over Atlanta in a heartbeat.... perhaps before I respond, let me share Geoff's later listing of pros and cons:

Pros

- Main PGA Tour season finishes prior to NFL and college football starting

- Clears a major out of the Olympic path every four years

- Strengthens PGA Tour playoffs by killing primary storylines of fatigue or whether will players skip a week

- Puts strongest possible tournament on the schedule two weeks prior to the Masters

- Creates new possibilities for PGA Championship venues in places like Texas, Arizona, Florida

- Ends "glory's last hope" sensibility that taints PGA Championship 

Cons

- Agronomically eliminates Northernmost venues that have been PGA Championship venues (Hazeltine, Whistling Straits, Oak Hill)

- Places greater agronomic and infrastructure-construction pressure on northern venues still able to host

- Ends PGA of America's hold on sports-light August, weakening their position for next TV contract

- Likely ensures permanently smaller audience watching the PGA (sports-busy May vs. sports light August)

- Condensces majors schedule between second week of April to second week of July

- Introduces new weather issues for PGA Championship venues in places like Texas, Arizona, Florida

- Ends traditional Masters-U.S. Open start to major season

- Endorses the PGA Tour playoffs as a competition worthy of bumping a major to May 

What else?

There is no question that moving the FedEx nonsense to August is a positive for the Tour and presumably the sponsor.  Ratings for the events have been dismal, so I'm left wondering whether this is driven by renewal negotiations with a certain Memphis-based company. 

I'm a tad skeptical of Geoff's August vs. May dichotomy....  May involves competing with NBA and NHL games, but most of those take place under cover of darkness....

In all of this I've seen no mention of any effects on the Ryder Cup/Presidents Cup or the Olympics.... Not sure when the Tokyo games are scheduled, but it's a long trip from the BMW to Japan....  

Conceptually, this is a 4-5 week compression of the Tour's schedule, the ramifications of which might include:

• No relief from the dreary and inconsequential wraparound season.  In fact, this could drive a lengthening of that given sponsors that wouldn't have a chair when the music stops;
• More scheduling battles between the Tours, especially for Euro players looking to maintain membership on both Tours.

On that first subject, here's Jay's response:

“I really don't hear that much about the wraparound schedule. I hear a lot of positives about the wraparound schedule, but I don't get a lot of questions about why or whether it's working. I think the reality is that, again, going back to demand, there's such demand for the PGA TOUR and for professional golf that obviously if you can put 47 events on the calendar, you're doing something right. And if you were to make changes, and I'm not suggesting what those changes would be, but if those changes resulted in fewer events, that creates openings on your schedule that the demand will fill. 

“I think we're in a position now where we feel like we're doing the right thing for our membership and for our fans because they're clearly responding.”

Have you considered the possibility that you're not hearing anything because no one is watching?

Now I think these scheduling changes might conceivably have triggered the change to a team format at the Zurich.  If you were an insider and knew that contraction was on its way, you'd want to make sure your event stood out from the competition, no?

Back to Jay on this subject:

“So you've got to look at formats. You've got to look at the way you present your product through the media. You've got to look at the way our players engage through their own social media platforms. You've really got to look at every facet of what you're doing and be intensely focused on trying to reach that audience, and I think we have. 

“I know we all as an organization are giving a lot of thought to perhaps being far more aggressive in marketing to that audience to bring them in, and I think you'll see us be testing, innovating, and perhaps getting our message to audiences in areas that we haven't done in the past.”

Slow down there, cowboy!  How about we just aim for entertaining golf fans, and see where that gets us....  Watching the interactions of two-man teams will be fun, a scarce natural resource on golf broadcasts.  Oh, and given that one of the great recent improvements in broadcast technology has been audio capture, you can see where that oughta work.....I'm looking forward to the supercut of players apologizing to their partners....

One of the reasons that I'm optimistic about Jay Monahan is that he's an accomplished and avid golfer, presumably with an understanding of our game that was sorely lacking from Commissioner Ratched.

That said, he has a weakness for MBA-speak that makes clear how he could succeed behind the Ponte Vedra moat:

In June, several key TOUR executives and digital officers made a West Coast visit to companies such as Amazon, Google, YouTube, Facebook and Apple. With each visit, the TOUR team gained insight and knowledge as to how the TOUR was viewed through the prism of digital users. The visit to Facebook was especially eye-opening in terms of how much work the TOUR needed to do in order to increase its brand exposure, especially among millennial consumers.

Says Monahan: “The No. 1 takeaway that we all had and something we talked about as we were all coming back is as much video content as we're creating, we probably need to create somewhere in the magnitude of three to five times more as we go forward. We have a significant investment in our digital media across all of our platforms (but) I think you could expect that we're still fairly embryonic in the way we're approaching that in terms of investment level.

Ugh!  That elicited this Shack-snark:

Embryonic. Someone's been spending too much time around Commissioner Coterminous!

Ratched...Coterminous....whatevah!

 Unfortunately he goes on for quite a bit, including this about the use of streaming and social media:

“I strongly believe that the most valuable product is going to be our linear product, our television product, because that allows us to reach the masses and for the masses to experience the PGA TOUR and our players playing at the highest level. 

“Social media, mobile, all of that augments what we're doing and improves the experience that the fan can have. So whether it's continuing to improve and enhance ShotLink, whether it's allowing players to shoot video earlier in the week from the tournament to create greater awareness of that tournament and help them build their profiles, that ability to be talking all the time is a great opportunity for us to grow our audience and grow interest in our tournaments and our players. 

“But it has to augment and support what we're doing from a television standpoint, and we feel like we're doing a really good job on that front. But what we think of that world today, mobile and digital and now 80 percent of our fans are consuming their content via mobile, that will look very different in a year or two from now. Having the ability to adapt and being flexible about content and rights is something that is and will continue to be very important for us and our media partners.”

Jay, the Tour has been doing quite a horrible job at it.  In fact, it's declared war on many social media fronts...  Remember that cute Stephanie Wei that had her credentials pulled for posting a video from a practice round or pro-am?  And I also remember a YouTube video of Henrik Stenson shanking pulled at the Tour's bequest, whereas he was laughing about it on his social media feed.  

You would do well to call off the war and recognize where you create ill will by being so thin-skinned.   

I have one last thought on the schedule to leave you with before I go skiing. which relates to this quote from PGA of America Prez Pete Bevaqua:

“We are huge proponents of the Olympics. We are all about the Olympics, but we also have to protect the PGA Championship and we can’t just bounce the PGA Championship around every four years,” Bevacqua said.

Why not?

Wouldn't that allow for the best of all worlds?  Now there are a lot of constituencies that need to cooperate on this, but one way to break up the incredible boardom of Tour life is to mix up the schedule, and it allows a whole new set of venues to be accessible (or, given my snark above, it allows those venues to be played at a better time of year).

Talk it over among yourselves and I'll be back when I can.  My quads will be shot, but they're not integral to the blogging process....